Beaten Odds
by wolfergirl
Summary: Maura knows that a detective's job is a dangerous one. So does Jane. But for Maura, losing Jane is losing the most important person in her life, so when the odds that have saved Jane for so long are finally beaten, she is left alone. One-shot. Rizzles-ish?


**I don't own anything you recognise.**

**All statistics are made up.**

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Maura Isles, Doctor, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and Queen of the Dead, was familiar with the statistics surrounding death. In particular, she knew all about the probability that a detective would be punched, attacked with an axe, beaten with a blunt object, or shot at.

Maura Isles had frequently considered the probability that the detective to be punched, attacked with an axe, beaten with a blunt object, or shot at, would be Jane Rizzoli.

Maura had never had a day gone by when she didn't worry about her best friend's safety. She tried to tamp it down, to cap it and hide it from the detective, and so far, she was sure Jane imagined it to be a platonic, general concern of one friend for another.

It was so much more than that for Maura. Jane had others - Frankie, Tommy, Angela, Frost, Korsak. All Maura had was Jane. If Jane was gone, she was alone.

"Jane." The name was choked, sticking in her throat in a futile effort to not betray the panic she felt rising up in her throat. "No - Jane - "

In a lifetime of duty, the average detective is likely to be shot at a minimum of seventy times.

Out of those seventy shots, thirty are potentially fatal.

Out of those thirty, eighteen are near misses, with the detective being able to lead a normal life after treatment.

The other twelve shots are split into eight calculated shots where the detective is the target, and four where the shot is fired by accident.

It was one of those four that hit her Jane.

The numbers spun around Maura's head, taunting her, spilling through the gaps of the wall that kept her professional doctor-mind from her Jane-mind.

"Jane. Jane, wake up, Jane."

Her eyelids fluttered weakly like the young leaves on the trees surrounding them. Maura caught the moan that left her detective's lips and hushed it with a gentle finger, lifting her head carefully to rest it in her lap.

"Maur - a," Jane gasped. Her voice was more gravelly than usual, each syllable torn from her raggedy throat, defying the force in her that threatened to give up. Identical tears trickled down their cheeks at the cough that rattled through her chest. A dribble of red joined the salty path and the Medical Examiner swiped it away with the pad of her thumb.

"Jane - you're bleeding." Maura's frame shook with suppressed sobs. "Jane - it's everywhere - Jane - "

"Shhh," Jane soothed, injured as she was, ever calming, ever caring. "Not - tested yet - Doctor Isles. Still - reddish-brown stain." She broke off to splutter, turning her head with stiff, slow movements.

Maura hiccupped and gave a tiny smile, combing her fingers through the dark curls as she focussed on the face beneath her. Her Jane would always have her sense of humour.

The Queen of the Dead needed no test to say in what her hands were painted.

"It's everywhere, Jane. Whatever it is." Her Jane's eyebrows furrowed, the skin crinkling in concern that Maura was sure _she_ should be the one feeling, not the other way round.

"Not your shoes?" her detective muttered, attempting to rake her eyes down the doctor's outfit but getting stuck on the clenched jaw that partially shielded her emotions.

"Everywhere, Jane." Maura couldn't help but flick her friend's nose playfully. "That means on me, and yes, on my shoes."

"It'll - come off?"

"I - " Maura shook her head. Now wasn't the time to worry about dry cleaning. "It doesn't matter, Jane."

They fell quiet to the serenade of her Jane's erratic, laboured breathing and simply watched each other as each precious second ticked past.

"Maur - a." Her detective's lips trembled. "Stay safe. Tell..."

Maura's heart thumped almost painfully on her chest as the words fell silent. She rubbed her detective's cheek, clinical gaze clouded with grief and terror. "Jane - tell who? Come on, Rizzoli. You still have to - to play chess with me - and - and we haven't played basketball for a long time - please, Jane - "

She was rewarded by a gulped sigh as her Jane gurgled back into life.

"Maur - a." Cold fingers had found their way to her sweaty palm and scrabbled at the soft skin for a momentary grip. Maura linked her fingers with Jane's and felt her friend's arm relax at the reassuring touch. "Tell Ma - love her. And - there's a box - cookies I haven't - eaten yet."

Maura watched tiny beads of sweat break out across the perfect forehead as the strong, determined, beautiful woman in her arms struggled for breath.

"Maur - a."

It was the doctor's turn to hush her friend, folding in on herself to press a kiss to that forehead and rock back and forth in tight, tense circles, as much a comfort for her as for the bleeding detective.

"Jane," she breathed. "Jane. Stay with us, Jane." Stay with _me_, she wanted to plea. I need you. I need your company, your sunny smile, your Italian temper, your never-failing loyalty - you. I need you.

"Maur - a."

"Don't leave me, Jane," she murmured, giving up all pretence in a split second. "Don't - you can't - _please_, Jane. Please. Just - hold on - please - for me."

Her detective's breathing was at its most shallow, her eyes completely shut, her chest barely rising, her grip on Maura's hand suddenly loose.

Maura's head thundered with the sound of her blood pulsing through her veins as though she could somehow transfer life into her detective, her Rizzoli, her Jane.

"Jane."

She was whispering now, hunched over her Jane's head, crooning nonsensical sounds into her ears, feeling the last tremors of life drain from the woman who had held her together for so long.

"Jane."

"Maur - "

And then she was alone.

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**So I've only been in the Rizzoli&Isles fandom for about three months, having started watching in late May/early June. As such, this is my first R&I fic.**

**I'd love to know what you thought - it's probably a bit of an odd one for a first scribble, but there you go. I promise, I started it with the intention of heavy Rizzles, but who knows how it really ended up...**

**Twitter: SwingsetAlways**


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